How Porn Has Helped to Fuel The Child Rape Crisis

“I saw it on TV!”Liz Jones counselled hundreds of sexually-abused children in the years that she worked at Safeline as a counsellor. She dealt with countless incidences of porn-related abuse, but her heart sank each time she heard those familiar words “I watched it on the TV,” or “I saw it in the magazine.” On one occasion she counselled a boy just entering puberty from a top-notch Cape Town primary school. The principal referred his parents to Safeline after complaints were made to teachers about the way he kept trying to touch the girls, grabbing them between the legs and talking about sex inappropriately with the other children. It eventually culminated in a blatant incident of child-on-child sexual abuse.

Normal reprimands and discipline from teachers and parents were not working, so his mother brought him in for therapy with Liz. “But why?” Liz said to him, “Why did you say that? What made you think of that?”

Abuse Reactive

Eventually he admitted to watching a TV programme at a relative’s house. It was Emmanuelle on E-TV. He was not the only child to become “abuse-reactive” (sexually abusing other children) after watching Emmanuelle when the full series was broadcasted on E-TV in 2000, albeit late at night. Not all young people hit the sack when the clock strikes 9.30, or 11.30, or even 1.00 am.

Epidemic

Liz Jones explained that these children become over-sexualised. Now even watching soapies like Days of our Lives, or Generations, becomes a problem. “Children explain to me that when they see people kissing or lying in bed together, then they think of a porn movie they’ve seen and then they understand what is going to happen. I would love to see porn banned totally. Magazines are very easily accessible to children and they are circulating widely. There are also pornographic playing cards that they get at school. They say that the poor can’t afford porn, but amongst our clients, there is a lot of it.”

Devastating

Emanuelle was broadcast in 2000, just 4 years after pornography was legalised in South Africa. To many South Africans, it would seem like nothing serious compared to what children are accessing on their home computers and smart phones now, but the impact was just as devastating.

Propaganda for Rape

The boy who abused his girl classmates after watching porn on TV, is but one tragic story of the effects of porn on young children when porn started to flood South Africa.

Here are more:

• Nineteen-year-old Elvis Jotamo testified in court that it was while paging through a Scope magazine that he visualised a sexual fantasy with an acquaintance. Over a six week period his fantasy developed into an obsession. He testified of how he had strangled Linsey Boyd and then had sex with her corpse (Die Burger, 5 August 1993). He was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape and murder (Cape Argus, 21 September 1993)

• When the police found the blood-stained body of 7-year-old Raymonde Jacobs, of Mitchells Plain, they discovered – five metres away – the pornography saturated room of the rapist who had murdered her. The walls were covered with pin-ups from Scope, Stag and Bunny Girl (Cape Times, June 1991).

• A 19-year-old Eastern Cape gardener tried to emulate pictures from a Hustler magazine of a couple copulating in a bath when he raped his 53-year-old employer (Sunday Tribune, 9 September 2000).

Since 1991, when porn first flooded South Africa, the occurrences of rape, particularly of children, increased dramatically. SA Police records show that reported child rape increased from 3600 in 1992 to almost 15 000 in 1996. This is an increase of just over 400% in just four years.

There is a strong correlation between pornography addiction and rape, although in the simplistic, mechanistic sense, pornography does not cause rape. However, the author of numerous studies on men and porn, Robert Jensen, aptly puts it: “Pornography is a form of propaganda for a rape culture.”

Porn and Rape

Porn is connected to all forms of sexual crimes. Lindie Wadhams, a former social worker at Safeline says, “About 80% of the perpetrators I worked with admitted to being involved with pornography, ranging from soft-core pornography to hard-core pornography…”

Other research by Dr William Marshall found that:

•Rapists are 15 times more likely than non-offenders to have had exposure to hard-core porn during childhood, between ages six and ten.

•Baron and Straus determined that there are “significant positive correlations between a state’s rape rate and per capita sales” of pornographic magazines such as Playboy and Hustler.

Porn and Child Abuse

Another link is the connection between porn and child molestation. 87% of molesters of girls and 77% of molesters of boys studied in Ontario, Canada, admitted to regular use of hard-core porn.

Marcel Londt says of her work with rapists and child molesters in Pollsmoor Prison, “Child molesters in our programmes have referred to various films and publications which they have used to force their child victims into compliance.” Rapists and sexual abusers used pornography to make them feel ‘okay’ about what they are doing.

Pornography and Prostitution

In 2010, Former Senior Advisor on Trafficking for the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs US State Department, Laura J. Lederer, summarised the link between porn, prostitution and trafficking in the following four points:

1. Some types of pornography actually use trafficked victims, some of which were recruited via fake job advertisements.

2. Some traffickers film the acts that their victims are forced to perform.

3. Pornography is used in sex trafficking and the sex industry to train women and children what to do.

4. Pornography creates, and provides rationalizations for, exploiters as to how and why their sexually exploitive behaviours are acceptable.

Pornography and prostitution are two sides of the same coin. Pornography is prostitution with the camera running.

An Urgent Call to Prayer and Action

“Who will rise up for Me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for Me against evildoers?” Psalm 94:16

We need to get back to the Bible, to work for Reformation and pray for Revival in our own lives, families, communities and countries. Educate your school and congregation on the harmful effects of pornography. Invite speakers from Africa Christian Action to present a youth-orientated, multi-media Fight the New Drug presentation at your school or youth group. See www.fighthenewdrug.org for examples.

Protect Your Family

Ensure you protect your family by blocking porn on cell phones and computers. Visit www.cellphonesafety.co.za for info on how to do this and download a free Internet web filter from www.k9webprotection.com. Visit www.purehope.net for advice on parenting the Internet generation and for examples of age-appropriate conversations you can have with you children about issues of sexual morality.

Be Equipped to Fight the Porndemic with Our New Book:

PORNDEMIC: How the Pornography Plague Affects You and What You Can Do About It

This is a winnable war. What is the Biblical antidote to the porndemic? And what can you do to protect yourself and your family? How can we take back the culture from the pimps and pornographers? Africa Christian Action’s new book Porndemic will equip you, with the help of God, to begin to transform your community.

Now Available

This 256-page book (with 22 info-graphics and 23 pro-family action pictures) will be available at the launch for a special price of R75 (launch only).The book will normally sell for R85(plus R10 for postage within SA, therefore the Total is R95. Postage is R28 if you want it sent as a parcel, with tracking number).Contact 021 -689 4481 or
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to order.

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” Ephesians 5:11